Still a local celebrity... apparently...

I used to joke that I was a local celebrity in Europe because I would run into students from the study abroad program where I worked all over the place. Half the time I wouldn't even recognize them. I'd be in the grocery store, on a street in Amsterdam, in Christiania, you name it, and someone would say "Hey, Sarah!" ... "Um, hi..."

Very strange indeed.

My celebrity status reached a new peak last night.

I spent the day in D.C., popping around some of my favorite old haunts (shopping!!) and exploring a few new places in Georgetown and Adams Morgan. The day included a trip to the delicious and much anticipated Georgetown Cupcake (!) and a rather embarrassing 'couture/elevator/back door' debacle... Later in the evening I met up with my friend Collin from Georgetown and his brother, Landon. Landon was visiting from North Carolina and Collin had celebrated his birthday earlier in the week, so we had dinner at Clyde's and went out for "a few" belated birthday/welcome to D.C. drinks in Adam's Morgan. Somewhere between my n^x beer (I started classy with gin and tonics, but as the night progress I switched to an uncountable number of $4 drafts. Cheap compared to what I'm used to... I love thee, America.), the slice of some random guy's chocolate 40th birthday cake, and a jumbo slice of pizza, I had a weird "celebrity" experience.

I think we were at Madam's Organ when I caught the eye of a suspiciously familiar looking tall, blonde guy walking towards me. He approached me and was like "Denmark!?" I was like "Huh? What?" He was like "I've seen you walking on Gammel Torv!* Don't you work for DIS?"

?!?!?

"Um, I used to," I stammered, "but I don't any more. I moved back here on Monday. Wait. What are you doing here? Are you Danish?"

"Yeah, I'm Danish. I'm going to school at Georgetown now. My name is Peter."**

"Oh. Weird. I'm Sarah."***

And we exchanged numbers. At least I think we did. I now have some one named Peter in my cell phone (who I have no intention of calling, ever.) Really, really weird that someone would recognize me from walking around Copenhagen and that I would run into them in a bar I have been to all of once in Adam's Morgan. Small world. Local Celebrity.

I'm telling you, I'm so completely weirded out by this.

*A square in Copenhagen near where I used to work. Actually, it's between where I used to work and the longest pedestrian only shopping street in Europe so, yes, I was probably seen walking on it quite often.
**He actually said his name in Danish: Jeg hedder Peter.
** I actually responded in Danish, too: Åh. Mærkelig. Jeg hedder Sarah.